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5 Pfennigs
| Issuer | Magistrat Ballenstedt |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Gutschein über 5 Pfg. Die Gültigkeit erlischt 3 Monate nach öffentlicher Bekanntmachung. Ballenstedt i/H. den 28. Sept. 1920 Magistrat Ballenstedt im Ost-Harz |
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| Reverse lettering | Städt. Badehaus 5 5 |
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| Comments |
Ballenstedt was a small spa town in the Harz foothills, and like hundreds of German municipalities in 1920, its local Magistrat resorted to printing its own emergency money — Notgeld — to address the chronic small-denomination coin shortage that had persisted since the war. The Reichsbank simply couldn't keep up with demand for low-value coinage, and commerce ground to a halt without it.
At 50 × 35 mm, this is about as small as German municipal Notgeld gets, printed locally rather than farmed out to a Leipzig or Berlin printer. Survival rate for these tiny notes is poor — they were handled constantly, lost easily, and discarded the moment redemption became possible.